Before the last elephant falls

Posted: 8 March 2013 Every day, a long list of majestic creatures are cruelly slaughtered by poachers -- driving them closer to extinction. And they are killed to fuel violent syndicates getting rich on bogus goods -- elephant tusks become trinkets, rhino horns become fake sex remedies, and shark fins become soup. It is a global disgrace, and the sad truth is we’re losing this fight. But we know how to tip the balance to save these noble animals, before the last elephant falls.

Just days ago, Thailand’s Prime Minister promised to shut down her country’s ivory trade. Why? Because of us, Leonardo DiCaprio and our friends at WWF. When we heard she was hosting the UN summit on endangered species, we did what we do best -- we found a specific, doable demand that could have huge impact, and then weighed in all our people power behind a massive petition, combined with high-level advocacy and a barrage of social media. And we won!

This is just one of the many fights we are in to save endangered species -- we stopped a global proposal to legalise the whale slaughter, we are fighting a legal battle in South Africa to stop the lion bone trade, and in Europe we are in the final stretch of a huge campaign to save bees from pesticide annihilation! But for every battle, there are hundreds more animals facing extinction and time is running out. To truly win, we need to supercharge our team.

Here's the plan -- we take our tiny staff and grow a team focused on beating the poachers and profiteers, and we use our campaigning magic to take on fights across the globe. We know what we do can save these endangered species from disappearing from our planet. And it doesn't take much -- if 30,000 of us pledge to donate today, we could grow our team and scale up all our conservation campaigns. Avaaz will only process the pledges if we get to 30,000, enough to make a real difference.

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